Tuesday, 1 September 2015

Arun Jaitley on OROP – Annual pension revision do not happen anywhere in the world

“For the first time, a clause in OROP was openly rejected. The
Finance Minister has refused to give annual increment for pensioners
like servicemen get.”

“The task of the finance minister is very much like the housewife’s.
She has to spend each and every rupee wisely to make sure that there is
no cash crunch towards the end of the month,” Finance Minister Arun
Jaitley told the reporters during a press meet.

Ex-servicemen have been fighting for the past 78 days demanding the
implementation of One Rank One Pension. The finance minister told the
reporters, “We are ready to give them OROP, but we cannot give them
annual increments like they demand. We can consider revisions once every
five years. The 7th Pay Commission will soon submit its report to the
Government. If we have to implement their recommendations and the OROP,
there will be additional expenses. We’ll have to manage that too.”

He also said that the Central was committed to the long pending
demand of One Rank One Pension but the ‘only difficulty’ as the
‘arithmetical translation’.

“My work is very similar to the responsibilities of a housewife. She
has to run the family with the money that her husband brings and ensure
that there is no cash shortage throughout the month. Therefore, we will
not be able to give a 3% annual increment on the pension that is being
demanded by the veterans.

“We have the responsibility of looking after these soldiers who
retire at the age of 35 or 38. We agree to implement the OROP scheme.
Pensioners are likely to see a substantial increase in their pensions.
But it is impossible to increase the pension each year. Accepting these
“unreasonable concessions” will form the basis for others like BSF and
CRPF to make similar demands.

“I have, in my mind, an opinion and formula for OROP scheme. Others
too will have their own opinions and formulae, but they have to be
reasonable and rational criteria. OROP may not be a scheme with monthly
or annual revisions,” he said.

Two major obstacles are, one is yearly increment and another issue of
base year. There have been several rounds of talks between the official
and the protesting veterans on this issues. But all of those have
failed.
The pension drawn by soldiers who had retired earlier much less
pension, when compared with the pension received by those who had
retired recently. Instead of taking into account the calendar year in
which the soldier retires, OROP fixes the pension on the basis of the
rank and the number of years the soldier had served, to calculate his
pension. Any future enhancement in the rates of pension, it would
benefit all the ex-servicemen. This is the most important feature of the
scheme.

More than 20 lakh veterans and 6 lakh war widows all over the country
are hoping that their pensions will be revised based on OROP Scheme
effective from 1.4.2014.

Shri
Bandaru Dattatreya, the Minister of State(IC) for Labour and Employment
held a press conference here today. Elaborating on the initiatives and
continuing efforts of the Government to address the issues and concerns
of the Trade Unions for the welfare of workers, the Minister said that
of the twelve demands of Trade Unions, the Government is positively
working on at least nine demands. Shri Dattatreya said that as already
assured while taking Labour Law reforms, the Trade Unions will be
consulted. In continuation of earlier appeal to Trade Unions on 27th
August, 2015, the Minister appealed again to reconsider their call for
proposed strike tomorrow in the interest of workers and the Nation.

In this context, Shri Bandaru Dattatreya has sent a letter to to striking Trade Unions.

Here is the text of the letter-

“Dear

“This
is with reference to my letter and appeal to you for reconsidering your
call for strike on 2nd of September 2015 in the light of demands raised
by the Central Trade Unions. While requesting you to reconsider your
decision, I would like to bring the following to your consideration.

“The
Charter of Demands given by you has been on high priority for me. I had
held meeting with you on 19th Nov., 2014 to discuss the issues
concerning the Charter of Demands. Thereafter, another meeting was held
on 15th May, 2015 where Shri Dharmendra Pradhan, Hon’ble MoS (IC) for
Petroleum and Natural Gas and Shri Piyush Goyal, Hon’ble MoS (IC) for
Power also participated. The Inter-Ministerial Committee (IMC),
constituted by Hon’ble Prime Minister, held its first meeting with you
on 19th July, 2015.

“The second meeting of IMC to
discuss the various issues relating to the Charter of Demands with
Central Trade Unions was held for two days on 26th& 27th August,
2015.

“In view of the suggestions given by you in the
meetings held by Inter-Ministerial Committee, the Government assured the
following:

1. “Government is seriously considering
amendments to the Minimum Wages Act to give minimum wages to all
workers. As per the proposed amendment, the Central Government will
prescribe National Minimum Wage for three different categories of
States. It would be mandatory for the States to fix their minimum wage
not below the National Minimum Wage so prescribed by the Central
Government. If the minimum wage already notified by a State is higher
than the National Minimum Wage prescribed by the Central Government, the
higher notified minimum wage shall prevail.

“While
prescribing the National Minimum Wage the norms given by ILC and Supreme
Court judgement will be taken into consideration. At present the
National Floor Level Minimum Wage is Rs. 160 per day but with the
implementation of the said norms the minimum wage would be not less than
Rs. 273 per day.

2. “For the purpose of bonus, the
wage eligibility limit and calculation ceiling would be appropriately
revised. It is proposed to revise the wage eligibility limit from Rs.
10,000 to Rs. 21,000 and calculation ceiling from Rs. 3500 to Rs. 7,000
or the minimum wage notified by the appropriate Government for that
category of employment, whichever is higher. With the proposed revision
of the minimum wages, the average calculation ceiling would be about
Rs.10,000.

3. “The Government has taken many steps for
the social security of all the workers, especially unorganized workers.
The Government is working out ways to include construction workers,
rickshaw pullers, auto rickshaw drivers and volunteers of different
schemes like Aanganwadi Centres, Mid Day Meal Centres etc. For organized
workers also many initiatives have been taken like Universal Account
Number (UAN) for portability of account for EPFO members and Second
Generation Health Reform Initiatives by ESIC.

4.
“Regarding contract workers, a comprehensive review of the existing Act
is being considered. The main features of the proposed revised Act would
be deployment of contract labour through registered staffing agencies
to be encouraged to ensure social security coverage and same working
condition for contract workers as that of the regular workers. The issue
of same wages to contract workers as that of regular workers for same
nature of work requires wider consultation and a committee will be
constituted for this purpose, if required.

5.
“Government has already enhanced minimum pension for EPFO members and
every pensioner gets minimum pension of Rs.1,000 per month perpetually.

6.
“Labour Law reforms will be based on tripartite consultations as
already stated by the Hon’ble Prime Minister. The States are also being
advised to follow the tripartite process. I have held many tripartite
consultation meetings with you on proposed labour law amendments. In
future also, the tripartite consultation will be held for any proposed
change in the labour laws.

7. “For strict adherence to
Labour Law enforcement, advisory has been issued to the States and
strict monitoring has been initiated by the Central Government. I have
written a D.O. letter dated 25.05.2015 to Chief Ministers of all the
States for strict enforcement of Labour Laws. Secretary (L&E) has
also written D.O. letters dated 27.05.2015 and 26.08.2015 to Chief
Secretaries of all the States in this regard. A circular for strict
enforcement of labour laws was also issued by the Chief Labour
Commissioner (Central) on 26/08/2015.

8. “For
employment generation, the Government has taken many initiatives like
Make in India, Skill India, Mudra Yojana and National Career Service
Portal etc.

9. “Abolition of interviews for all
recruitments at relatively junior level jobs which do not require any
special knowledge/expertise is being done for transparency and
expediting the process of recruitment.

10. “Inflation
is lowest in last many years except for two items, onions and pulses.
Government is taking necessary steps to contain the prices of these two
commodities also.

11. “The Hon’ble Finance Minister in
his concluding remarks has very clearly said that the new Government
has charted out a very pragmatic economic agenda for the benefit of
everyone, especially those who are poor and disadvantaged section of the
society. However, this agenda needs your support and will appreciate if
we can get your valuable inputs on this. He has also assured that for
this a continuous dialogue will be maintained with the labour unions.

12.
“He also mentioned that as far as the FDI in Railways is concerned, it
is necessary because Railways require huge investment for upgrading the
.infrastructure. This is possible only with the help of private sector
and hence FDI is being allowed in railways and the FDI will be only in
infrastructure and will not be allowed in the operation of Railways.

13.
“As far as FDI in Defence is concerned, the Finance Minister has
explained that India is the largest importer of military hardware in the
world and this means a large amount of funds are being paid in foreign
exchange to outsiders including private organizations. On the other side
when we produce military hardware within the country, we not only save
in terms of foreign exchange but also create many jobs within the
country. Hence it is very important that we take advantage of FDI in
defence to achieve three objectives of (i) saving foreign exchange, (ii)
creation of jobs and (iii) more importantly to ensure that we are not
dependent on outsiders for the security of the nation.

Finally,
as the Hon’ble Prime Minister has already stated, the journey of labour
reforms will not be meaningful until we have dialogue and consultation
with the labour and labour unions. I assure that we will have
consultations with labour unions and give due weightage to the views of
labour unions in all such initiatives including the initiatives of other
Departments which may affect the labour.

Comrades, 1) The 7th CPC had issued following statement in July 2015 in its website http://7cpc.india.gov.in/

“Further
to the memoranda received from a variety of Organisations, Federations,
Groups representing civil employees in the Government of India as also
from the Defence Services, the Commission has had fruitful and wide
ranging discussions on relevant issues with all stakeholders. Such
interactions have now been concluded. Valuable inputs have been received
and the work of compilation and finalization of the report is underway,
so that the Commission completes its task in the time frame given to
it. Accordingly, any future requests for meeting with the Commission
will not be entertained.”

This shows clearly that the 7th CPC wanted to present its report on 28th August 2015 itself with no extension of time.

2)
On August 7, 2015 National Council (Staff Side) Secretary Comrade Shiva
Gopal Mishraji met the Chairman, Seventh Central Pay Commission, Shri
Ashok Kumar Mathur and Secretary, Mrs. Meena Agarwal. It was assumed
that the report of the VII CPC, as was promised for 28th August this
year, may be delayed by one month.

This shows that the 7th CPC was delayed only by few days or maximum one month.
3)
Many news papers including Danik Bhaskar had reported that the 7th CPC
will be submitting its report in September 2015 itself.

4)
The 7th CPC chairman had informed in a PTI interview Justice Ashok
Kumar Mathurji had stated that “The Commission will submit its report by
the end of September,

5) The Hon’able Finance
Minister had informed the parliament that the provisions for
implementation for 7th CPC is made from Jan 2016 onwards and budget
provisions are also made for the current year and next year. which says
the salary outgo of central government employees will go up by 9.56 per
cent to Rs 1,00,619 crore in current fiscal. The pace will increase
further in 2016-17 at 15.79 per cent to Rs 1.16 lakh crore with the
likely implementation of the 7th Pay Commission award, the outgo towards
salary will further rise in 2017-18 to over Rs 1.28 lakh crore.

6)
The 7th Pay Commission has asked for a two month extension from the
government. That the Commission is hoping that the government would take
a call on One Rank One Pension, so they could modulate their own
formulation in terms of pay revision. The Commission is also expected to
take a call on lateral entry and performance based pay. Source: NDTV
News and Hindustan times

One more reason for delay in
the submission of the 7th CPC is likely due to rise in prices of few
essential commodities which is due to deficit rainfall .

7)
Now four month extension of term of 7th Central Pay Commission is made
the Union Cabinet chaired by the Hon’able Prime Minister, gave its
approval for the extension of the term of the 7th Central Pay Commission
by four months up to 31.12.2015.

8) Now the delay in
submission of report and its implementation will be there and actual
benefit of 7th CPC will occur only from July 2016. As Government will
constitute its own committee to study the implementation of the 7th CPC
report and issuing orders.

9) Now larger questions are raised by this extension of term of the 7th CPC by four months by the Central Government as follows.

a)
When will the 7th CPC will submit its report? Now it is clear that the
report will be submitted only in December 2015 only, if the 7th CPC
feels that the assigned work has been completed it can submit its report
any time, its only upto the 7th CPC and the Central Government. As a
employee we should put pressure on them.

b) Is the 7th
CPC extension so required, from the beginning the 7th CPC was against
the extension of time, even at last stages the it had thought of one
month extension only. Suddenly four months delay in submission of report
has raised so many questions and the 7th CPC can submit an interim
report.

c) If DA merger would have taken place in
2014, the Central Government employees would have got a benefit of more
than 20% wage hike.

d) Now the delay in submission of
7th CPC report is there, we should immediately demand the interim relief
to the Central Government employees and merger of DA with effect from
2014.

We sincerely hope the 7th CPC report will be
submitted at the earliest and the Central Government will implement the
report at the earliest, so that the aspiration of the Central Government
employees are taken care by the Central Government. While doing so the
justify wages are to be calculated by the 7thCPC.

Subject: Representation from Government servant on service matters – reiteration of instructions – regarding.

The undersigned is directed to refer to O.M. of even number dated 6th
June, 2013 wherein instructions have been issued on submission of
representation by Government servants about their service matters. In
spite of these instructions, it has been observed that Government
servants including officers/ officials of para military forces and Army
personnel continue to represent directly to the Prime Minister,
Minister, Secretary (P) and other higher authorities, directly.

2. As per the existing instructions, wherever, in any matter
connected with his service rights or conditions, a Government servant
wishes to press a claim or to seek redressal of a grievance, the proper
course for him is to address his immediate official superior, or Head
of his office, or such other authority at the appropriate level who is competent to deal with the matter in the organisation.

3. Such submission of representations directly to other authorities
by- passing the prescribed channel of communication, has to be viewed
seriously and appropriate disciplinary action should be taken against
those who violate these instructions. This can rightly be treated as an
unbecoming conduct attracting the provisions of Rule 3 (1) (iii) of the
Central Chill Services (Conduct) Rules, 1964. It is clarified that this
would include all forms of communication including through e-mails or
public grievances portal etc.

4. Attention in this connection is also invited to the provision of
Rule 20 of CCS (Conduct) Rules, 1964 prohibiting Government servants
from bringing outside influence in respect of matter pertaining to his
service matter. Representation by relatives of Government servant is
also treated as outside influence as clarified vide MHA OM No. F.
25/21/63-Estt.(A) dated 19.09.1963

5. It is reiterated that these instructions may be brought to the
notice of all Govt servants including officers/ officials of para
military forces and member of armed forces and action taken against
those who violate these instructions.

(Mukesh Chaturvedi)
Director (E)

To
The Secretaries of All Ministries/Departments of Govt of India
(as per the standard list)

With the 18 months time given to the 7th Pay Commission to submit its
report coming to an end in August, the Government has given an
extension of another four months. The government says that the extension
was given because the commission had asked for it. Many are not ready
to believe that the 7th Pay Commission, which was almost ready to submit
its report, had suddenly requested for an extension. They wonder what
the necessity was for this extra time.

Two months ago, on July 24, 2015, the 7th Pay Commission had, on its
official website, voluntarily said that work is on and it will be
completed well within schedule. Even until the second week of August,
there were no indications from the members of the 7th Pay Commission
that they would require an extension. In these circumstances, the fact
that the 7th Pay Commission has suddenly requested for additional time
has caught many by surprise.

Even on 7.8.2015, NC Staff Side Secretary Shri. Shiva Gopal Mishra
informed after meeting with 7th Pay Commission that one month may be
delayed to submit the report to Govt. And consecutive news from various
media, including PTI had published that the chariman of 7th CPC Justice
Ashok Mathur assured to submit the report by the end of September.

After the commission submits its reports and recommendations, the
higher official side will require time to debate over the issues.
Keeping these in mind, it was felt that submitting the report by the end
of August will ensure that the recommendations of the 7th Pay
Commission will be implemented without any delay, from January 1, 2016
onwards. The employees were hoping that this time around, there wouldn’t
be any arrears payments. The extension has put an end to all these
expectations.

A number of speculations are on about the real reason why the
commission has delayed its report. Some claim that the extension has
been given to the 7th Pay Commission in order for them to prepare a
report on the impact of One Rank One Pension for the Defence personnel.

Now that the report has been postponed, one can be very sure that expectations will rise in the month of December.